If you want to be a filmmaker you have to train yourself as a pianist or as a football player does, as Rembrandt did by making again and again the same drawing
through all his life, as a fisherman who's always fishing another fish. They do that again and again, day after day, night after night.

If you acknowledge that you will never know the complete truth about life; if you admit that you will always look, talk and think in half-lies, you will see that the world is a series
of circus-like happenings, with the clown as the direct ambassador of God or something we call God.

This could be my base for The ABC of Cinema. At least it helps me to make cinema.

A collective workshop aimed to design an alphabet of inspiring exercises, which can be used as tools for the development of an everyday cinematic way of thinking and a sensitive approach towards filmmaking

A. How do we design an ABC to train ourselves as filmmakers?
A group of seven visual artists/filmmakers get together in a workshop, in order to design a series of audiovisual exercises that might be used by anyone interested in the basics of filmmaking: the regular training that makes an artist capable of seeing and feeling at the shooting spot. The activities and discussions lead up to a list of 26 triggering lines: a peculiar alphabet of cues for special cinematic moments.

B. How do we actually film with the ABC as guideline?
The team explores the Cogordan building in Mexico City through the lenses of the triggering lines previously designed… A diversity of people, rhythms and connections, arises under their attentive eyes. During three weeks the team films again and again, day after day, the same triggering lines. They manage to catch a glimpse of the ever-changing mosaic in which everyday life develops: their footage range from a lovely cooking session, to the intriguing eyes of a shy policeman looking at himself in a tiny mirror.

C. How do we turn the ABC into a film tool that might be used by anyone?
It’s your turn: Read through the 26 triggering lines. Get into the Cogordan building. Explore its spaces and dynamics, nooks and crannies. Take another look at the exercises…do any of them ring a bell? Do any of them help you visualize the way in which you can turn a slice of reality into an audiovisual piece? Then take a camera, open your eyes, your ears, your senses. Start filming the one-off events out of which life is woven. Do it again. Again and again. Sketch after sketch. Make your own ABC. Only this way you’ll be able to understand and recreate the world in a unique and special cinematic way.

Gal Kinan

HelenaFernández-Cavada

LidijaZelovic

Nirvana Paz

F

F

F

P

P

P

U

F. A portrait of someone without seeing his eyes.

The first person I shot in the Cogordan building was the concierge. As soon as I saw him, I noticed that he was never looking directly at anybody. He was standing in the corridor trying to blend with the architecture, almost becoming one with the wall. I thought it would be great to create with him the triggering line “A portrait of someone without seeing his eyes.”
I started to shoot from the beginning of the corridor and slowly built up trust with him till he let me shoot from very close. He was a very shy man and his personality was hiding behind his uniform. I felt that I had to wait patiently till he completely trusted me –to be there every day with the camera and try to find his true nature.

P. A man dares to look at himself in the mirror

Meanwhile, I was also shooting “A man dares to look at himself in the mirror” with one of the guys living in the building. He was quite confident in front of the camera and let me get close to him very quickly. For a living he was making erotic films, and was used to being in front of a camera. I got very nice footage from the session with him, but at the same time I felt that it was too easy to shoot him –he was completely in control of himself and of what he gave to the camera.
Suddenly I thought that it would be interesting to try and do the same exercise with the building´s concierge. Nirvana asked him if he had a mirror, and he had a broken one in his little room where all the electricity meters of the building were. He got it out and placed it on one of the wooden panels at the entrance corridor; then we shot him.
It did not work– he was too nervous about it and I was nervous too. Every time someone passed by the corridor he turned away from the mirror and could not concentrate. In the end, after trying twice with no success, I thought of doing it on Friday at around 17, when his day is done and he’s about to go home; I also asked him to take out his cap. Suddenly it worked –he was really looking, concentrated in his own image. He could finally stop being the guard of the building and look at himself in the mirror.

U. A woman makes a hole with a drill. She takes your camera and films the hole she has made. Then she films herself; but since she can’t see herself, she turns the viewfinder and looks at herself

Proved to be a challenging task for me. I was used to observing reality, let it happen in front of me and document it in my own way, but not interfering with it. However, this exercise was about creating events where the director has to direct the situation. I loved the triggering line but I did not feel comfortable with giving instructions or interfering in the middle of the shooting to tell the person what to do. I shot it three times and every time felt disappointed with the result. It did not work for me and I did not feel comfortable with it. After talking about the bad footage with Diego, he suggested that I should try to have more control over the situation and see how it felt.
On the last day of shooting I managed to find a girl for this shot. This time, I tried to be calm while directing her –it worked. We got 10 minutes footage with her and it was great. She really looked at the holes in the wood, and then looked at herself inside the lens of the camera with a very strong concentrated gaze. I was totally surprised.

S

W

I

L

V

T

H

Z

S. Deep sleep, how does it feel?

This was one of the first triggering lines I shot and with which I felt quite comfortable. The first day I shot it, maybe I was too afraid of getting close with the camera and waking up the child; I didn’t want to disturb his sleep or to make him open his eyes in front of a big black object pointing directly towards him. As a matter of fact, the first time that he opened up his eyes, I moved away and ran to search for his father to take care of him. When we came back, the baby was still sleeping.
This first approach to his vital state of dream let me familiarize with his breathing, his movements, and it gave me the confidence that, once the camera becomes an extension of your own body, it doesn’t disturb anyone; once it becomes a comfortable extension capable of caressing even a baby’s sleep. When I managed to feel more or less comfortable with the camera, I began to try and penetrate the subconscious state of the boy, or maybe I began to feel more freedom to seek for the handling of the camera to be synchronized with the baby’s movements and state. To move with the rhythm of his breathing, to try to caress his skin…then many questions came up: How can we penetrate into the depth of a situation, when we know that the person is somewhere else, in this case in his subconscious? How can we show a state in which we are not taking part, but as mere spectators of somebody else’s trip?

W. Something has changed.

After recording for hours, I found the shot in a concrete instant and then, to finish it off, by chance when I was walking in front of the building. This shot, which I repeated again and again, makes me wonder: How can we read other characters’ body language? In which part of the body do we find the tension of the action? Which sounds accompany it?

L. In and out of someone's private space. Don't forget the sound.

While trying to shoot this triggering line, I understood the meaning of the ABC of cinema. I understood why we need this training. The first day we shot something happened, the scene we were looking for was in the first shot; it happened within a moment in front of our eyes and ears and I felt it, the problem was that I didn’t manage to capture it with my camera. I came back several days afterwards, trying to repeat it, but those instants can’t be repeated: one needs to know how to catch them at the right moment.
Out of these shootings, several questions came to my mind: How to detect the private space of a character who is in the public space, how to jump from one side to the other and blur its vague limits? How to detect that which the character hides, that which he conceals?

V. Not being with whom you are physically. Film the state of mind.

To enter a place and see it at first glance, to open up one’s senses and feel with the whole body what’s happening in front of you: Is it possible? To try to see which are the energies that take place in the space, how do they move? If we could trace the invisible threads between the characters, would it be like a map of their relationships? Would they be sonorous threads? And the essential part: that character which remains isolated, without any connection with the rest of the lines, how to shoot his state of mind?

T. The camera is looking at something. What does it hear? One shot.

First of all, being capable of making the people around you feel comfortable; in this case, the father and his son were already comfortable in front of the camera. Then, how can we understand the psychology of the character in order to anticipate his movements? Little by little I tried to understand his attention state and, as the everyday activity unfolded, I began to comprehend in which moments it looked at the child while listening to him, the sound was its guide, like the stick of a blind person. For me it was important, in this case, to have an element of surprise, to reveal until the very end the position of the child in relation with that of his father. As a matter of fact, we were five people in a very small space. Now the important thing would be to detect the instants in which the state of attention to sound was present. Which was the most intense instant? The shot became very long so as to manage to condense those instants; it lasted 10 minutes, so it was necessary to edit in order to concentrate the most intense moments.

H. One hour of sun.

The ideal would have been to have the freedom to stop any other activity when the sun appeared and began shooting. I learned that it’s not possible to keep on changing the iris, I tried to look for light games but it was almost impossible to edit. How can the space of the building roof condense the context that surrounds it? Which small details can situate us spatially in the city, how to show the city’s character starting from one detail… something like that, how to give the feeling of a desert from the oasis?

Z. It has been raining, you can feel it. When the rain stops, the light has changed. Someone wants to enjoy it.

This is one of the last shots I made and, from my point of view, it was the beginning of something; I mean, this was the shooting in which I felt I was working with a team, for example I felt Nirvana beside me, observing the scene, sharing it, suggesting… the shooting process was enriched and my gaze became wider. It’s also visible when the person you are shooting feels comfortable with you and forgets about your presence; in this way, there are more possibilities of penetrating reality. From here more possibilities open up, so as to give the camera an intention: for example, how can the camera be as sensual and enjoyable as the character of the person it is recording?

I

A

O

I. Mother washes her son as if it was her own body. One long shot

What I was looking for, was getting separately into the emotion of the child and the emotion of the mother, and then both of them together.
As it happens, two people are busy doing something together but within their own thoughts; and then for a moment they connect, then they go into their own thoughts again... Therefore, even within the 'together journey' there is time for being on your own. And time to be together.

A. Someone is looking out of the window. Try to find the bridge to the outside

Finding the bridge to the outside is one of my favorite triggering lines. It can be done in so many ways. Either to get into the mind of the person who´s looking at something and try to translate through the images what (s)he is looking at. Or to look from the other side, what the person is looking to, or from where the person is looking at. Or to find an object and film it and use it as a bridge between two things. Or to take the camera-person/director as the one who’s looking at something, and to do it through your own emotion and tell your own story…
It generally does tend to be like that in any filming, but in this case it´s more extreme; the 'bridge' needs to be obvious, the connecting part. It should tell the story on its own. I think the footage you see could be a solid base for a story.

O. A woman wants to be herself and dares to do it. One long shot

'Being Woman' can mean so many things and it does mean so many things for different women. I have used the most obvious example of Wanting to be a Woman, meaning wanting to be more feminine. It does not have to be true for Ileana, the lady I filmed, but I have used it to be able to tell within 3 minutes a story that can be recognized only in images. I have used the music to make it more obvious, but more importantly to make it more fun to watch.
What I have learned with this exercise, is that the triggering line may sound very good at first sight, but while coming up with one it is important to think in images and to be able to formulate it well.

X

E

M

K

R

N

X. Body language is a dance. Film the body of a person you don’t know

We accompanied Juanito, the concierge, to wash the glass from the elevators. I had great expectations about that possible dance: I imagined a choreography of hands seen from the other side of the glass, but I hadn’t thought about the fact that being inside the small elevator, with Gal and the boom, was going to be difficult and uncomfortable. Anyway, we did it and, even though there were some beautiful images, I waited again for the day in which he came back to clean the building’s entrance.
It was all of a sudden when he told us that he was about to start cleaning. Helena and me ran to get ready; she was going to do the sound because we wanted to remark the music of his cleaning dance.
To play with the back lightning was a decision right from the first time I shot him, but when we began, I had lots of fun getting him out of focus: he looked like a dancing insect, his body got confused with his reflection and the people who were passing by the street seemed to be branches of himself.

E. A person cooking with the heart

From the very beginning, I knew that I would do this triggering line with Rocío: I had noticed her loving care while cooking, I know that the ritual begins with a visit to the market in order to choose the best vegetables, the perfect fruits, the freshest herbs. So I didn’t want to put any pressure on her, I would wait until the day in which that ritual was ready in terms of time and mood.
And even though I had enjoyed her meals, the truth is that I had never been there during their preparation; the kitchen, once we were there with the camera and Helena taking care of the sound, proved to be rather small, so it wasn’t possible to use the tripod. I think that was what made me feel more nervous, still insecure about my skills with the camera, especially in a situation in which I ignored what was going to be Rocío’s next movement.
However, maybe because we share the love for cooking, it was very natural: many times I managed to guess her movements but, above all, I deeply enjoyed seeing how the light devoured the kitchen, the sounds seemed to stand out in that space and Rocío looked as if dancing while she was cooking. She raised one hand slowly, one foot, whispered, as though she had forgotten our presence.
When I checked the material, I doubted about including the short story she told us about giving cooking lessons to the tiles of her parents’ house when she was a girl; but in the end I think that, even though it remarks our presence in the place, it also helped us get intimate, get to know and even understand why she was so serious and concentrated while cooking.

M. Ten seconds before.

For 3 days, Lidija and me arrived at the building very early in order to see how the store “Model Caps” was opened; on those 3 days we kept on arriving late, always 5 minutes after the whole process of opening had begun. I thought it was a signal to change the triggering line to “5 seconds after.” But on the fourth day we arrived on time: we shot Sergio arriving at the building, opening the doors, turning on the lights, getting ready to receive the first clients. We didn’t spare any detail, tried different shots, varied movements; this time we couldn’t leave without good footage.
I, anxiously, checked the footage on the camera and rewound it so that Lidija could also see it. It wasn’t until late at night when we discovered that Lidija never saw the material shot in the morning, I didn’t confirm it, and the result was that we had recorded something else on it.
Two days later, we were early at the building, but once again they had arrived before; he was already half-advanced with the opening process. We asked him to wait for us before opening it completely, so as to shoot him again.
This was the best one. We had accompanied him so many times all through the process, that we were much more comfortable than before. All of this helped us see how there was no change at all: every single day the same movements would take place, the same rhythm, the same ritual of opening and waiting.

K. Space doesn’t change, people change it. One long shot of an architectonic space. After a while somebody comes in the frame and goes out of it. Everything changes

Due to the fact that we arrived early to shoot the opening of the store “Model Caps”, we had two free hours before Helena and Gal came to the building, so I decided to walk around the roof garden; I went up with the camera, without tripod or boom, just to look around.
Being there, nothing seemed interesting, so I thought about looking at what used to be my terrace; I was curious to see it inhabited by others, transformed.
The man who used to be my neighbour from the apartment on top of mine, was smoking in his balcony, I only managed to see his feet; I was surprised, I knew that it was an interesting moment, that my point of view was similar to the one that motivated the triggering line about the space.
I got paralyzed for a moment: Did I have to tell him I was going to shoot him? Should I run for the boom? How to shoot him? I hadn’t planned anything and, afraid of losing the opportunity, I turned on the camera and thought it was the right moment to play and shoot, guided only by the guts.
A quick white balance on my white shirt and he was already done with half his cigarette.
Although it might be considered logical, I was surprised to discover that the feeling of nervousness that seemed to fill me up before turning on the camera, was gone once the sensation of playfulness led mi actions. Through the viewfinder, the space seemed strange, without any clues about where it was: it could be the ceiling, a wall, the floor. These distortions of reality are notorious with my myopia, and through the camera, to play once more with them was quite funny; maybe I could share the uncertainty that my eyes, with their out of focus, constantly provoke in me, until something helps me define what I see, its dimensions, its perspectives.

R. Being in love with poison. Woman smokes a cigarette

It was a matter of talking a lot with Rocío about this triggering line. For me, it was important to tell her in detail what it was about, what I was interested in, what I had imagined.
For 6 years I saw her smoking in her balcony; from my window I saw her smoking in silence, alone, focusing just on her cigarette. That was all I wanted: to look at what she sees while smoking, to imagine what she thinks of, to see her face closely, her concentration.
To find out if what I suspect is real: whether she smokes the “poison” thinking about her other “poisons”; if that’s the moment in which she flirts with death, with lack of love and loneliness.
Could I find it out just by looking at her while she smokes? Could a look to the space that she built for her addiction reveal her other addictions, her love to other poisons? To what extent am I what I’m looking for in her?

N. Look for a mirror. Speculate and discover

What we see in a mirror is always a speculation and, what’s more about speculations than filming or taking pictures?
Rocío, fascinated by the ABC, gave us the keys of her house to use it as our headquarters during the three weeks of shooting, which let us wander freely around those spaces.
Her house is full of mirrors: one near the laundry room, in the bathroom, in her bedroom, in the corridor… I had tried several times to shoot the mirror in the corridor, to walk around discovering everything and end up with that reflection of Rocío’s bedroom, of her intimacy, but it wasn’t until the day in which we found Rocío having her afternoon siesta, that such a curious act in her house became meaningful; once again nervous about shooting her sleeping, interrupting her rest or becoming invasive. But there I was, shooting her while she was relaxed, deep asleep. It was a lovely moment, a speech about women and society was on the radio, the light entering through her window was very white.
Another moment full of sweetness and everyday life was when, just after arriving at Rocío’s house, I saw Bertha ironing the sheets: another dance, I thought, here’s another body that dances. I looked at her also through the mirror, and the fact that her presence changed the space caught my attention, her movements were transforming what I had seen before in that same space, or maybe it was just my speculation.

watch fullinterview

What is The ABC of Cinema?

If you want to be a filmmaker you have to train yourself as a pianist or as a football player does, as Rembrandt did by making again and again the same drawing through all his life, as a fisherman who’s always fishing another fish. They do that again and again, day after day, night after night.

If you acknowledge that you will never know the complete truth about life; if you admit that you will always look, talk and think in half-lies, you will see that the world is a series of circus-like happenings, with the clown as the direct ambassador of God or something that we call God.
This could be my base for The ABC of Cinema. At least it helps me to make cinema.

The ABC of Cinema workshop began at the time my house -my new house- was full of moving boxes. I had moved out of the building in which I lived for 6 years. I don’t remember clearly, but it was during the last week of the workshop´s first phase, that we discussed about where, how and in which spaces we were going to film our triggering lines. The decision of choosing the building where I had spent the last six years of my life made me happy.

From the beginning of the ABC, I always liked the idea of solving everything in one single place; I fantasized with the buses’ terminal, a hairdresser’s or a random corner. Thus, the proposal of doing it in what’s now my previous building, the Cogordan building, was well received; its possibilities were big, because it’s not only inhabited as a house but also used as a commercial building, with several stores on the ground floor; what’s more, there were already ties with some of the neighbours. Within the team, I was the one who knew many of the building’s dynamics, we only needed to convince the neighbours to participate and let us follow them closely for three weeks; the rest was a constant surprise, because some of those who were willing at the beginning were not there when we shot, while many doors that hadn’t been considered before, opened up in front of us. We owe a lot to the entrance guard and to Juanito, the concierge: they helped us transmit confidence to the other neighbours; the fact that they supported us was a guarantee, especially for the people in the stores. Undoubtedly, we owe Rocío not just the fact that she opened up her house for us to turn it into our headquarters, but also that she put us in touch with many neighbours.

Still, I think that the biggest motivation for those who helped us and got involved with us, with the project, was the consideration of the ABC as homage to them, to their building… a feeling that, sincerely, I always shared.

Nirvana Paz
Workshop participant

The Cogordan building was a mystery to me. I could not imagine how it would look like till I came to Mexico City to do the ABC project. Nirvana and Helena, the Mexican artists who participated in the project, refused to give us any clue about the character of the building. It was supposed to be a complete revelation for us, an unknown territory. In reality, the building was located in the center of town, in a commercial area, next to the government building and city hall. This area was full of stores, cars and traffic jams, as well as masses of people shopping, selling, eating and walking in the streets. Entering the front door from the hot, dusty, noisy street, the Cogordan building was a complete surprise, with its art deco architecture, elevators with closing net doors, old fashion lamps and a red roof with a secret garden. When I first tour inside the building, of course I fell in love with it. It had a unique personality. Our first days of the project were spent on the roof of the building. We were enjoying the small secret garden that was planted there, getting used to the building and its sounds. We were thinking of the triggering lines that we would try to shoot in the building during the next coming weeks.

Gaining the trust of the people who live and work in the building took time and patience. First we had to ask for their permission to take part in the ABC project. We wanted to make a real unique portrait of them and their environment. But to make them agree to participate in the process of shooting was not an easy task. Rocio gave us a room in her beautiful apartment, where we could spend time in between the shootings. These were our headquarters.

The first people who agreed to be filmed were the entrance guard of the building and the concierge. The good relationship that we created with them gave us the confidence to continue further with the project. In those first few days we gained their respect and managed to shoot some good footage. It also helped to convince the other residents and shop workers in the building to trust us and take part in the ABC project. Our days became full of appointments. We were shooting scenes, planning the next ones and watching the materials that we had got. The residents of the building saw that we were serious in our mission and that they mattered to us. By being there every day, ready to shoot them and their lives, we managed to convince the inhabitants that we were worthy of their time. Through that footage we created a unique and complex portrait of a diverse group of people who live and work in an old building in the center of Mexico City.

We would like to thank all the people from the Cogordan Building for their support and patience.
We would also like to thank Rocío Sanchez who opened the doors of her house for us during all that time.

Gal Kinan is a visual artist who lives and works in Amsterdam. In her art she researches the complex relationship between machine and humans. From 2005 to 2007, she was a visual arts resident at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten. Over the last six years, she has participated in different shows and projects in The Netherlands and outside of it.www.galkinan.com

Martin van den Oever is a filmmaker, photographer and visual artist with a special interests in stereoscopic representation and visual anthropology. Various projects deal with the crossover of arts and social science. Latest big film project 'Water of Gold' is created as a transnational approach to the Dutch colonial War (1946-49) in which both Indonesian and Dutch veterans are portrayed.www.destobbe.orgTrailer De spiegelportretten van de Weekend Academie on Vimeo

Kees Hin is a Dutch filmmaker. He started making films back in the 1960’s. In 1998 as an advisor at the Rijsakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, he met Diego Gutierrez and since then Hin and Gutierrez have become close collaborators in several projects.www.keeshin.nl

Metje Postma is a documentary filmmaker and a lecturer in Visual Ethnography at Leiden University. Her present work consists of a visual ethnographic study, combining text and the audio-image- of a Sudanese Arab Bedouin community: the Rashaayda. The final work will consist of three documentaries and a text.Some clips from one of the documentaries:https://www.youtube.com/user/MetjePostma

Orianna Calderón is a Mexican writer and communication expert who has collaborated with el despacho since 2009. She’s currently doing a master in Gender Studies at the University of Bologna; her thesis will be about feminist documentary filmmaking.

Ton de Vreede is a photographer, musician, and Information Technology specialist, who live and work in Amsterdam.www.ev11.net

Diego Gutiérrez is a Mexican/Dutch visual artist, film director and cameraman. In 1998 he founded "el despacho", an artist initiative based in Mexico City and Amsterdam interested in relating visual artists and people from other disciplines with an alternative way of making documentary films.www.eldespacho.orgwww.partsofafamily.com

What I was looking for, was getting separately into the emotion of the child and the emotion of the mother, and then both of them together.
As it happens, two people are busy doing something together but within their own thoughts; and then for a moment they connect, then they go into their own thoughts again... Therefore, even within the 'together journey' there is time for being on your own. And time to be together.

A. Someone is looking out of the window. Try to find the bridge to the outside

Finding the bridge to the outside is one of my favorite triggering lines. It can be done in so many ways. Either to get into the mind of the person who´s looking at something and try to translate through the images what (s)he is looking at. Or to look from the other side, what the person is looking to, or from where the person is looking at. Or to find an object and film it and use it as a bridge between two things. Or to take the camera-person/director as the one who’s looking at something, and to do it through your own emotion and tell your own story…

It generally does tend to be like that in any filming, but in this case it´s more extreme; the 'bridge' needs to be obvious, the connecting part. It should tell the story on its own. I think the footage you see could be a solid base for a story.

O. A woman wants to be herself and dares to do it. One long shot

'Being Woman' can mean so many things and it does mean so many things for different women. I have used the most obvious example of Wanting to be a Woman, meaning wanting to be more feminine. It does not have to be true for Ileana, the lady I filmed, but I have used it to be able to tell within 3 minutes a story that can be recognized only in images. I have used the music to make it more obvious, but more importantly to make it more fun to watch.

What I have learned with this exercise, is that the triggering line may sound very good at first sight, but while coming up with one it is important to think in images and to be able to formulate it well.